Dream headline: “Kerry misses Senate vote, shafts American workers”

As somebody who has been highly critical of Kerry’s absence from the U.S. Senate, I’ve been waiting for this day. From the WashPost: “Senate Rejects Unemployment Benefit Extension”

The Senate by a single vote rejected an election-year effort Tuesday to extend federal unemployment benefits.

Democrats tried to attach the benefit to a corporate tax bill. On a 59-40 vote in the GOP-controlled Senate, they fell just shy of the 60 votes needed to overcome objections that extending the benefits violated last year's budget agreement.

Massachusetts Sen . John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was the only senator who missed the vote. Kerry was campaigning Tuesday in Kentucky.

No complaints of dirty tricks, my conspiratorial readers. This was a legislative rider proposed by the Senate Democrats. Oh the irony, the sweet sweet irony.